Report7Hennighausenp1126.pdf

THE

FIRST GERMAN IMMIGRANTS

NORTH AMERICA.

The First German Immigrants to North America.

By Louis P. Hennighausen.

the thirteenth day of May in the year 1607 the first

permanent English settlement in North America was

founded by the landing of about 105 immigrants on the

banks of the James River in Virginia. In the following year

some German mechanics were sent to this settlement by the

London Company, to manufacture glass, soap, tar and pitch.

These were the first German immigrants to this country. More

than a century passed before we hear again of a German im-

migration to Virginia.

We find them next among the Dutch in New Netherland,

a colony of Holland, comprising the territory of the present

States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and a part of

Pennsylvania. Holland was then still considered as one of the

States belonging to the German empire; the political ties with

the empire were at no time of a firm nature and at the peace

of Westphalia in 1648 they were formally severed. The people

of Germany, and especially of the Low-Lands, continued how-

ever to consider the Dutch as one of their own race and kin.

They spoke the same dialect in Holland as in the adjoining Ger-

man provinces, the Frisian being the most prevalent, and it was

easier for a Low-German to understand a Hollander than to

understand one of the High-German dialects. Low-German

was then the official, pulpit and literary language of North

Germany. The bible was translated and published in the Low-

German language in the fifteenth century in Cologne, in 1494 in

Lübeck and in 1522 in Halberstadt. The Dutch idiom developed

as the literary language of the people of Holland in the six-

teenth century, and the modern High-German has slowly ad-

vanced its victorious progress to the North. The Hollanders

dwelling in the Delta of the river Rhine were in close com-

mercial and social intercourse with the people living on the

upper banks of that river and its tributaries. From them they

received the timber for the building of their ships, and to

them they sold the colonial and tropical products brought

home by daring adventurers from distant countries beyond the

ocean. Holland was then the first maritime power of the

world and it was but natural that a large number of the men

for its commercial adventures and colonial enterprises should

be drawn from the neighboring German States and from the

upper valley of the Rhine. Another important factor, which

in those days was a stronger bond than race and nationality,

was the Protestant religion and church, which united Holland

and Protestant Germany in sympathy and common action.

The reader will by the foregoing relations of these countries

understand, how it came that the Germans were largely repre-

sented in the colonisation of New Netherland.

The Hudson river had first been discovered in the year

1524 by Verazzano, a citizen of Florence, who sailed in commis-

sion of King Franz I. of France, to make discoveries. He

anchored in the bay of New York and went up the river in

a boat as far as where Tarrytown is now situated. In a letter

dated July 8th, 1524, he gives a glowing description of the

bay, river and country to his king. Nothing, however, was

done by France in this discovery, and it was forgotten. In

the year 1619 Hendrick Hudson, an Englishman in the Dutch

service, seeking a Northwest passage to India, re-discovered the

bay of New York and sailed up the river to where Albany is

now situated. By virtue of this discovery, Holland, according

to the curious maxim of international law then and even now

prevailing, laid claim of ownership to all the territory of

present New York and as far South as the South river (now

Delaware). In 1614 they established a small factory on Man-

hattan Island, erected a small fort, called Fort Orange, on the

present site of Albany, and a small fort, called Fort Nassau,

on the South river, near where Philadelphia is now situated,

and also several trading posts with the Indians. In 1621

Wilhelm Usselinx organized in Holland the Dutch West India

Company, consisting of a number of rich capitalists and merch-

ants. The Dutch government granted to this company a charter

giving it the exclusive privilege of trade, the power to appoint

governors and officers, make laws, administer justice, and

private ownership of land in all the Dutch possessions of

North America. The company had also the right to conclude

treaties and in many respects exercise the functions of a

sovereign government.

In the year 1623 the first ship sent by the company landed

on the Hudson thirty immigrant families. Most of these were

Walloons, some from Luxemburg and other provinces. Eight

of these families settled near Fort Orange, a few on Manhattan

Island, others near Fort Nassau on the South river and the

rest on Long Island, at the present site of the City of Brook-

lyn. With them came the first Governor or Director General

for the colony, Cornelius Jacob May. The great honor, the

emoluments and almost absolute power of his office as a

Governor of a territory now comprising four States of the

Union, had no charm for him and he left the next year for

home again. His successor in office, Wilhelm Verhulst, who

came in 1625, merely looked, at his new immense domains and

immediately set sail again for Holland. About 200 immigrants

arrived in 1625 and settled on Manhattan Island, these were

the founders of New Amsterdam now New York city. The

company had learned, that it took a man of a different stamp

than the merchants and capitalists, May and Verhulst, to be

the Governor of an infant colony in the wilderness of North

America, and they selected Peter Minnewit, a native and citizen

of the City of Wesel on the Rhine in Germany. He arrived

at New Amsterdam on the fourth of May 1626. Of the

earliest Governors of the colonies he appears to have been

the most capable. He was full of energy but with all the

moderation and circumspection required to deal with the

aboriginal Indians on the one side and the poor immi-

grant settlers and intruders on the other. It was well

that he was invested with the most extensive authority. One

of his first acts was to acquire a legal title to Manhattan Is-

land by purchase from the Indians. This was an act of

justice, which could not fail to make a good impression on

them. Heretofore in the English colonies the Indians had been

ousted by rude force and no regard whatever had been paid

to their prior rights of possession.

Minnewit paid for the Island of 22,000 acres the sum

of sixty Dutch florins, about twenty four dollars. Having

secured a title and satisfied the Indians, he proceeded to erect

a strong stone fort, called Fort Amsterdam, on the Battery,

for the better protection of the settlers. He then induced the

scattered settlers to locate near his fort, encouraged the

erection of substantial dwellings and furnished the poor settlers

at the expense of the company with horses and cattle. This

concentration of the population gave the colony strength and

security and removed from the Indians the irritation as well

as the lawlessness which are fostered by isolated habitations.

In his dealing with the Indians he was just and firm, he

gained their confidence and thereby extended the trade with

them in furs. In consequence the export of furs, which in

1625 amounted to only 25,000 florins in value, increased to

56,000 florins in 1628, and in 1631 New Amsterdam recorded

an import of 130,000 florins.

As early as 1631 they built in New Amsterdam the largest

ship which sailed on the ocean at that time. It was named

"New Amsterdam" and variously estimated at 600 to 800 tons

burthen. Every year ships with immigrants arrived and among

them a large number of Germans. Minnewit had been a

Deacon of the reformed church in his native city of Wesel,

and held the same position in the Dutch reformed church of

New Amsterdam, together with his brother-in-law, Johann

Hueck, also of Wesel, and superintendent of the ware-houses

of the company in New Amsterdam. This church was first

opened by Rev. Michaelis in 1623.

A change in the policy of the West India Company, by

granting to its influential members large tracts of land, manors

with feudal rights, was the cause of misunderstanding between

Governor Minnewit and the company and in 1632 he was re-

called. He considered himself dealt with wrongly and sailed

for Holland seeking redress. He remained there for some

years expecting his re-instalment in office. His claims where

not heeded, and disappointed and chagrined at this unjust

treatment, he entered the Swedish colonial Service at the soli-

citation of Wilhelm Usselin.

Wilhelm Usselin, who originated and organized the Dutch

West India Company, had not received the reward for his

services that he expected from the company. Feeling sore

and disappointed, he left his native country in 1624 and went

to Sweden with the intention and object to form an opposition

company under the auspices of the Swedish Government, to

invade the lands of the Dutch West India Company. Sweden

was at that time under the reign of its glorious King Gustavus

Adolphus and his wise Chancellor, Axel Oxenstiern, the leading

Protestant power of Europe. Germany was since 1618 involved

in the thirty years war. The King and his Chancellor were

ambitious to found an empire and readily entered into the

schemes of Usselin. A charter was granted to him to organize

a company under the name of "The Swedish South Company."

The privileges granted were even more liberal than those of

the Dutch West India Company and extended to the four

continents Asia, Africa, America and Australia. Its term

was limited to twelve years from the first of May 1627, and

the subscription was to be open to everybody until the first

of May 1628. The King pledged four hundred thousand dol-

lars from the royal treasury to the enterprise. The wealth

and population of Sweden was however deemed insufficient for

the gigantic and far reaching programme of this company and

it was resolved to solicit the German people to join in the en-

terprise. The new doctrines of the Reformation had extended

from Germany to Sweden, and Sweden had established the

Lutheran church as the exclusive religion of the State. There-

by Protestant Germany had entered into close relation with

Sweden and looked to it for support in its mighty and desperate

struggle with the Catholic imperial power. In 1626 the first

circular in the German language was printed by Christopher

Rausner in Stockholm, inviting the German people to take

part in the new enterprise. Other circulars were published

and circulated in Protestant Germany, but the venture took

no practical shape.

In 1629 the King of Sweden, with his army, was invited

by the Protestant princes of Germany to assist them. He was

placed at the head of the Protestant armies and began his

victorious career. In 1632 he was in camp near the city

of Nuremburg and on the 16th of October again warmly re-

commended his colonial scheme to the people of Germany.

A few days thereafter he fell in the battle of Lützen. His

Chancellor, Oxenstiern, continued to carry out the policy of

his dead King. In June 1634 he renewed the charter of the

company and extended its benefits to Germany. The charter

was soon confirmed by the deputies of the four upper circles

at Frankfort. But the funds of the company had been

expended in the war and years passed before the first

expedition of the company was able to sail. A book in

pamphlet form was published in Frankfort in 1633, giving

information as to the terms, privileges and advantages of the

company and of the country to be colonized. In it a strong

appeal was made to the German people, who were suffering

under the devastation of the terrible thirty years war, which

was then in its fifteenth year; reference is made to the

tyranny and pillage of the imperial and Spanish troops, and

the ruin and destruction of the wealth of Germany.

It promised to the German people the same and even more

favorable conditions than to the Swedes themselves and that

the expeditions should be under the control and management of

the former. It was however impossible in the midst of a war

of such a horrible and destructive nature to carry out coloni-

sation schemes. Germany, which, including the German pro-

vinces of Austria, now supports a population of more than

sixty millions of people, was at the end of the thirty years

war computed to have left no more than 5 to 6 millions of in-

habitants. 2000 cities and towns are said to have been utterly

destroyed and the destruction of men had been so immense, that

to give protection to the large number of widows and single

women, it was in some of the cities and towns ordered, that

men who/were able, should take several women into their

households as wives, which in the history of the Teutonic

race stands without a parallel. Germany had been the great

battlefield of Europe. Troops of every nation had trampled

on its soil and lived off its fruit; how could it take an active

part in the colonisation of distant countries, which then en-

gaged the attention of the Western European States. Oxen-

stiern tenaciously clung to the plans of his dead King to found

a colonial empire as well as to extend the power of Sweden

over a large part of Germany. He had taken formal possession

of the bishopric of Bremen and of the province of Pomerania

with the cities of Stettin and Stralsund. When therefore

Peter Minnewit, the late Governor of New Netherland, proposed

to him to fit out an expedition to seize a part of New Nether-

land and establish a Swedish colony he found willing ears.

He represented the fertility and salubrity of the country on

the Delaware Bay, and the weakness and inefficiency of the

Dutch company. The Regency in Stockholm fitted out an

expedition consisting of the ship "der Vogel Greif," with fifty

colonists, under the escort of the man-of-war "der Schlüssel

zu Colmar," to establish a colony on the Delaware under the

leadership of Peter Minnewit.

Camparius, the earliest Swedish historian of New Sweden,

informs us that Germans took part in this expedition. They

left at the close of the year 1637 and arrived in the Spring

of 1638 at Jamestown, Virginia.

The treasurer of Virginia (the Governor being absent)

demanded a copy of the commission given by Queen Christina

to the ships. This was refused unless the Governor would

grant free trade in tobacco to the Swedes. The ships remained

ten days, taking in fresh water and provisions. The com-

mander told the Virginians that they intended to sail to the

South River to lay off plantations for the raising of tobacco,

beyond the boundaries of Virginia, like the Dutch had done

on the Hudson River. The first act of Governor Minnewit on

their arrival on the South River, was, as he had done on Man-

hattan Island, to purchase from the Indians a tract of land in

exchange for goods and trinkets. The deed for this land was

written in the Low-German, and was burned in the fire which

destroyed the royal palace at Stockholm in 1697. He erected on

this land, which is now a part of the city of Wilmington, Del., a

small fort, which he called in honor of his young Queen "Fort

Christina." The Dutch, who occupied Fort Nassau, fifteen

miles further up the river, sent down to him to inquire what

he was doing there. He gave them, an evasive answer. As

soon as he was fortified he established his authority as Governor

of a new colony under the protection of the government of

Sweden, and called it "New Sweden." The Dutch did not

molest him, and Sweden was at the time too powerful in Europe

for Holland to enter into a war with such a warlike nation

for the possession of a distant insignificant colony.

Minnewit's experience in the Indian trade, acquired as

Governor of New Netherland, and his superior energy, enabled

him to return one of his ships in 1638, with a full cargo of

furs of great value. This success, and the glowing description

of the new country, caused such an excitement at home, that

in the succeeding year several ships arrived with immigrants

from the countries belonging at the time to the crown of

Sweden. In 1639 more ships with immigrants from Sweden,

Finland and Germany arrived, and also Peter Hollander, of

Gothenburg, as Vice Governor of the colony. The affairs of

the colony under the wise administration of Minnewit prospered

and settlers took up land in the present States of New Jersey,

Delaware and Pennsylvania. Their intercourse with the Indians

remained peaceful and friendly.

In 1641 Peter Minnewit died and was buried at Fort

Christina. Some reports say he went back to Sweden. Jo-

hannes Printz, a native of Holstein, was appointed his successor;

he was a German nobleman, whose full name, was "Edler von

Buchau." The family belonged to the Roman Catholic Church;

he had turned Protestant and had entered the Swedish service.

He was of large stature, weighing more than 350 pounds, of

brusque manner and jovial disposition. Among the military

escort he brought with him were the following Germans: Hans

Lüneberger, Jurgen Schneeweis, Peter Meiser, Constantin

Grünberg and Isaac von Eysen. Printz arrived with two

vessels, the ,,Fama" and ,,Storch," and fifty-four German

families, mostly from Pomerania. In accordance with instruc-

tions, he erected on an island near the West shore of the South

River the strong Fort "New Gothenburg," and also his residence,

which he called "Prinzenburg." Printz became aggressive

against the Netherlanders and had repeated controversies with

them. The Dutch commissioner Hudde had bought land from

the Indians at the site where the city of Philadelphia is now

built, and raised the coat of arms of Holland on a post planted

on the land. A Swedish officer tore it down and Governor

Printz sustained him. Governor Stuyvesant of New Netherland

came to visit Printz with the object to adjust the difficulties;

they had a most pleasant meeting, and parted under mutual

pledges of becoming good neighbors and to assist each other.

Stuyvesant in the year 1651 had the small "Fort Nassau"

demolished and erected a larger and stronger fort, named

"Casimir," five miles from Fort Christina, where New Castle,

Del., is now situated. By this the Dutch regained most of the

trade with the Indians, which they had lost to the Swedes

under Minnewit. Printz protested in vain. A change had

taken place in Europe, the peace of Westphalia had been con-

cluded. Sweden had retained the German province of Pomer-

ania and Bremen, but it was utterly exhausted in money and

men, and Holland had nothing to fear from it. There being

no further reason for its continued subserviency to Sweden,

the West India Company instructed its Governor of New

Netherland to assert their right of authority over the Swedish

settlements on the Delaware. Printz, finding his resources too

limited to successfully cope with the populous New Nether-

land, and the Swedish government feeling its inability to

maintain the distant colony, having transferred its affairs to

the Board of Trade of Stockholm, he sent in his resignation.

He was in such haste to return to Europe that he did not

wait for the acceptance of his resignation, but sailed in a

Dutch vessel, leaving the government of New Sweden in the

hands of his son-in-law, a Mr. Papegoyo. The Board of Trade

of Stockholm determined to make an effort to save the colony

and appointed its secretary, Johann Risingh, a native of the

city of Elbing in Pomerania, as the successor of Printz.

There was a rumor that Risingh had been an officer in the

Swedish army and at the siege of Chemnitz in Saxony had

been cashiered for misconduct. He brought with him about

200 immigrants. His instructions were to preserve the peace

and keep on the best of terms with the Netherlanders, as well

as with the English, bordering on the South of the colony.

No sooner however had he arrived in his colony, when he

wantonly commenced hostilities, and in 1654 by stratagem

and superior numbers overpowered the garrison of "Fort

Casimir." Stuyvesant had at the time his hands too full with

affairs at New Amsterdam and could take no immediate

measures for the recapture of the fort. He reported the

matter to the company in Holland, who sent him two ships

with troops and ordered him to subdue the Swedish colony.

In the meantime a Swedish ship had come to New Amster-

dam; it was seized by the authorities and Stuyvesant invited

Governor Risingh to come to New Amsterdam with a view

to adjust the difficulties Risingh discreetly declined the

invitation. The temerity of Governor Risingh in his dealings

with New Netherland had probably its origin in an overween-

ing contempt which he must have felt for the supiness of the

West India Company heretofore shown to the Swedish intruder.

The time for action however was near. The troops from

Holland arrived and Governor Stuyvesant prepared for war.

All the able bodied men of New Amsterdam were pressed in

the military service for the campaign. Only the Jews were

exempt on the payment of a monthly war tax of sixty-five

"stiver" in commutation of military service. The Dutch ships

in the harbor available for the purpose were seized for the

expedition. On Sunday, the first of September 1655, after

attending divine service with his army, he embarked on seven

ships carrying from 6 to 700 men and sailed for "New

Sweden." The weather was favorable, and in less than a

week, on the following Saturday, "Fort Casimir" was again

in the possession of the Dutch. The expedition then proceeded

for Fort Christina. Governor Risingh was requested either

to leave the country or acknowledge the sovereignty of New

Netherland. He refused to do either. The Dutch then

commenced hostilities by plundering the poor settlers. On the

next day Risingh capitulated. The terms of surrender were

humane and honorable to both parties, private property was

respected, the settlers where not to be molested except that

they were required to take the oath of allegiance to Holland,

religious liberty was guaranteed, the Swedish garrison to leave

with flying colors and to be transported by Dutch ships to

an English or French harbor. After the surrender, Governor

Stuyvesant in pursuance of instruction from his company,

offered to return Fort Christina to the Swedes, if they would

agree to reasonable and honorable conditions. Risingh preferred

to be sent to Europe. On the 6th of October he arrived with

his small garrison in New Amsterdam, and there being a delay

in the shipment of the party, he charged Stuyvesant with a

breach of the terms of the surrender. Stuyvesant answered

in an open letter in which he stated that Risingh and his soldiers

were so dissolute and disorderly, that the captains of the ships

declined to have them as passengers. Risingh answered in an

open letter, written in the High-German language, wherein he

charges the Dutch soldiers of having pillaged the settlers and

stores at Fort Christina after the surrender. The letters of

Dirk Smith, a Dutch official, are written in the Frisian Low-

German. All these letters are preserved in the archives in

Albany. The number of inhabitants at the Swedish settlement

at the time of surrender is given as seven hundred. I believe

that this only included the settlers near Fort Christina and

not those who lived at some distance from it.

The settlers were not much grieved by a change of govern-

ment, which could afford them better protection and did not in-

terfere in their private affairs. Their connection with the Swed-

ish Lutheran Church continued until the war of independence.

The consistory at Upsala exercised the spiritual authority and

continued to send learned ministers of the gospel to the colony

to take charge of the Lutheran congregations. Most all of

of these ministers appear to have had full command of the

German language; they not only assisted and preached to the

Germans, but we frequently find them in charge of German

congregations in the colonies. One of their early ministers,

Rev. Jacob Fabricius, who officiated from 1669 to 1671 in the

Dutch church of New York, was a German; he resided for

a time at New Castle and in 1677 accepted the charge of the

Swedish Church at Wicacoa, now a part of Philadelphia.

Another German-Swedish minister was Rev. Justus Falkner

at the same church. How many Germans were among the

Swedish settlers cannot be stated. We have seen that three

governors were Germans, and Löher in his "History of the

Germans in America" (1846) states that he found a tradition

among the descendants in Pennsylvania, that the proceedings

in the Court of Justice in New Sweden were conducted in

the German language. The Swedes being at the time in

possession of a part of Germany, and looked upon as the

champions of the Lutheran Church, the difference in na-

tionality was not so great, as it is at the present time.

The pleasant association and close intercourse between the

Swedes and Germans in this country continued until the war

of independence. The Swedes erected the first Lutheran

Church, which is still standing in the city of Wilmington,

Del., in the year 1698. The Swede Rev. Dylander dedicated the

first German Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pa. The ministers,

Gabriel Näsman, Acrelius, Unander, Parlin, Sandin, Wrangel,

Lidenus and Nyberg, all sent here by the consistory of Sweden

during the colonial times, were learned men of high christian

character. They assisted the German immigrants, who were

arriving in large numbers, in a true Christian spirit. Rev.

Gabriel Näsman preached in many of the earliest German

settlements in Pennsylvania, and Nyberg was the Pastor of the

first church in the Monocacy settlement in Maryland.

For a time efforts were made to unite the Swedish and

German Lutheran churches in America, and it came very near

of being consummated. The English Episcopalians also made

efforts to unite with the Swedish church, claiming greater

affinity to it in its organization of bishoprics, than other

churches, and when Rev. Andreas Goerenson of the Swed-

ish church of South Philadelphia, in 1768, selected the

Rev. Charles Lute of the English Episcopal church as his

assistant, the Swedish church soon thereafter united with, or

rather was absorbed by the English Episcopalians. A Rev. Peter

Schäfer was widely known among the Swedish and German

settlements in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He

was a native of Abo, in Finland, and preached the gospel

to the Germans, Swedes and Indians in Pennsylvania. He

endured long fasts, had visions and claimed direct inspira-

tion from the Almighty. He wandered through the colony

for a number of years and was well known among the Indians.

Some believed him to be a saint and others doubted his sanity.

He returned to Finland, where he was locked up as a lunatic

in the fortress of Gefle, where he died.

The authority of the Swedes in this country lasted but

seventeen years; the Hollanders, who succeeded them, were

ousted by the English in October 1664, and the English in turn

were ousted in 1776 by the only lawful authority, the people

of this country.

About the year 1662 a number of Mennonites came from

Holland and settled at the Hoorn Kill, on the Delaware, a

short distance below Philadelphia. Their leader was Peter

Cornelius Plockhoy, who published a tract in the city of

Amsterdam in 1662, giving a description of the country on

the South River, were he had lived for some time. The colony

existed but about two years, for when the English had taken

possession of New York, Robert Carr, the new Governor, sent

a military expedition to the settlement, which destroyed it, as he

says, "even to a nail." What became of Plockhoy for the

next thirty years is not known. But in 1694, blind and

destitute, he came with his wife to Germantown, where they

raised a subscription for him, and built him a house, where

he peacefully died after a few years.